Learning Like Rats
by FS
Summary: Gin has been ordered to babysit four-year-old Shiho for an afternoon, which is far more dangerous than he has thought... ; edited version; previously posted by Gin the Great, my joint account with SN1987a/Ritzen


Disclaimer: "Meitantei Konan" ("Detective Conan") belongs to Gosho Aoyama. I only borrowed it to write a fanfic for fun and am not making any profit with it.

Thanks a lot to my beta-reader Astarael00. :)

_FS_

_(Gin the Great)_

(Please read the Author's Notes at the end of the story.)

**x.**

**Learning Like Rats**

**x.**

He was the youngest member of the Organization—or more precisely, the youngest who owned a cocktail codename. He joined the Organization at the tender age of nine and was promoted to a senior rank at thirteen. Now, at sixteen, he finally belonged to the top rank of assassins and was one of the seven highest crows of the Organization. He had already dined with the Boss, gone out with Vermouth a few times, and killed so many traitors that even Vodka, his greatest fan, had stopped counting.

He knew he had to live up to his reputation. He had to execute even more traitors, spies and double agents, to eliminate this mysterious FBI-agent who all the others were afraid of, to go out with Vermouth more often (until he didn't need her to move up the career ladder anymore), and—and this was of primary importance!—to keep the Boss in a good mood.

Actually, keeping the Boss in a good mood was also the most difficult task, especially when the above-mentioned Boss, unconcerned about his reputation, told him to babysit a four-year-old. What the hell did the Boss have in mind when he ordered him to spend a day with the brat to "show her around"? What on earth could a four-year-old do in the libraries, torture-rooms and laboratories of the Organization except mess up everything? She was certainly a smart kid, judging from her intelligent eyes, her good manners and the few well-chosen sentences she had said until now. Perhaps they had managed to teach her a few basic theories which she could parrot back when she was asked...

At least she was easy to handle and pretty to look at, Gin thought. If his heart were not made of ice, he would have grown fond of the reddish glimmer of her soft, light brown hair, her serious blue eyes and her quiet manners. She surely had a balanced personality and was everything other than that damned sister of hers, the annoying little brat who was always whining about going out and looking at the pretty flowers and pretty trees and "pretty beeezzzzzz". He had to babysit that stupid girl when he was nine even though it was hate at first sight when they met.

The little redhead was, in contrast to her sister, a real cutie. She had spent two hours sitting quietly in front of the computer, surfing the internet for new scientific discoveries. Of course she didn't understand anything she read. But the fact that she could read was impressive enough.

Gin closed his eyes and leant back into the chair, which was one of the usual iron chairs for traitors on trial and therefore wasn't particularly comfortable. But he didn't get to rest the previous night and seriously needed to catch up on some sleep. The little redhead didn't look as if she could do much damage, anyway...

Feeling something resting heavily on his chest, he woke up with a start and found his torso, wrists and ankles firmly tied to the chair by leather ropes which the Organization used to keep the traitors still during the cross-examinations. The little redheaded witch was standing in front of him, cocking her head slightly to one side as if she was calculating whether she needed more leather belts or not. When he opened his mouth to curse, her tiny hand shot forward at incredible speed and silenced him with a piece of cloth. Much to his dismay, she took his revolver into her hands and beheld it with obvious interest.

"They told me you can shoot very well," she said, playing with the revolver. But there was something disturbingly close to awareness in her slow, precise movements. Either she had already learnt to shoot—or she was an extremely talented killer who instinctively knew how to handle a weapon.

Both of her parents died in an accident, after which the Organization separated her from her only sister, with whom she had had a very close relationship. They forced her to study all day and to work on experiments instead of playing harmless childish games like ripping off the petals of pretty flowers and looking at pretty trees and "pretty beeeezzz"... It dawned on Gin that he was in the hand of a psychopath, no, worse, in the hands of a child-psychopath, who had never learned to distinguish right from wrong, and who had never been taught that you were not allowed to hurt people.

"I'd like to learn it," she said quietly to herself.

Well, maybe she was just a curious kid who loved to play with things. He only needed to wait until she got tired of his revolver and released him to play with her.

After a moment of silent inspection, she walked to the desk, gently put the revolver down and yawned. Seems the brat finally got tired, he thought. Four-year-olds like her probably took a nap at this time.

"I read that scientists have conducted a few very interesting experiments with rats," she said, changing the subject.

He raised his brow, thinking that this could actually be interesting. She was, after all, only a kid with an unstable mind. She might be dangerous, but she didn't look as if she would shoot him just for fun. Moreover, she didn't look as if she were stupid enough to do that kind of thing. She was, unquestionably, an intelligent kid with an unstable mind...

But then she said something which was more disturbing than anything he had expected to hear.

"I read that one rat could learn things from another rat by eating it," she said, beholding him with a greedy glint in her eyes. "They gave some rats the flesh of other rats to eat. And the rats suddenly could do things which they couldn't do before..."

Her eyes roamed about the room until they stopped at the "torture-box", which contained the sharp instruments the Organization used during the cross-examinations. The box was on top of a shelf which was much too high for her. However, as he had already feared, she didn't even bat an eyelid but immediately moved her chair from her desk to the shelf and carried a few big volumes of a scientific series from the bookcase to put them onto the chair.

She could fall, Gin thought. She could hit her head on the floor and stay unconscious for hours. The Boss would send someone to search for them when he noticed that they had not returned from their little trip. It would be embarrassing... It would certainly ruin his reputation. But it was still better than being eaten alive by this psychopathic brat. Still, it was his own fault. He had cast all caution into the winds only because she looked like a harmless little kid. If he survived this day he would learn his lesson... and he would never be able to forget the impression her reddish hair made on him. He should have known that she was a little witch the first time he saw it.

Of course she didn't fall. She climbed off the chair just as gracefully as she had climbed onto it and carried the huge torture-box to the desk.

"I really don't want to do this," she said, giving him a friendly smile. "But you see, I really want to shoot as well as you. I don't want anybody to shoot me or my nee-san. I want to be able to protect her and me when I grow up."

He tried to look sympathetic and understanding, which was difficult to do with the cloth in his mouth.

"I have to do it," she said decisively and carried the torture-box towards him. "I hope you don't mind."

His whole body was covered with sweat when she crouched in front of him and chose an especially sharp knife. But then she hesitated, gazed hard him and put the knife back into the box.

"Just kidding," she grinned. And he had the feeling that he had never, ever, seen such a bright and lovely grin on another face before. Much to his relief, she was not going to hurt him.

"You know, I've never liked knives and forks," she explained, and bit into his arm.

x.

She didn't like how he tasted, she told him later, when she had removed the cloth from his mouth to "call a truce for the time-being". His arm was sweaty and didn't taste half as good as she had imagined. Besides, his incessant cursing was the reason she couldn't treat him better. Despite knowing that the room was soundproof, she had to put the cloth into his mouth because she didn't want him to scold her. He should really stop cursing and listen to her instead. She wanted him to promise to her that he would satisfy three demands of hers if she released him. And afterwards they were not going to talk about this matter again...

After all, he didn't really have a choice. First, he had learned from his lesson that you could never know what her evil mind could come up with (which seemed particularly disturbing to him now that he knew that she knew that no one could hear them in the soundproof room). Second, he would lose his reputation for sure if the other members found out that he had been tied to the chair and scared to death by a four-year-old kid (he couldn't kill her no matter how much he wanted to do it, as she was one of the Boss' favourite prodigies). And third... Well, her wishes were not that hard to meet.

Her first wish was for him to help her convince the Boss to let her visit her sister on her sister's next birthday. He knew that he would have to babysit her again if she got the permission to see the annoying brat. But that was still better than the alternative choice (the gossip, Vermouth's mockery, Vodka's dumb questions etc.).

Her second wish was that he teach her how to shoot, which he gladly accepted, as she was a brilliant kid who wouldn't need much time to learn.

However, when she told him her third wish, he realized that it was almost impossible to fulfill.

And he only agreed because she told him that she had wanted to do it since she saw him for the first time... and because he had a weak moment in which he would have promised anything to get free from that chair... and because she swore that she would never tell anybody about anything that happened in this room. She would never tell anybody that he had let her do _that _to him. Never!

He couldn't believe that he had really allowed her to give him braids.

**x.**

**A.N.: **Just an insane one-shot which suddenly entered FS' mind and which she decided to type down before she lost the plunny...

This has been posted under Gin the Great, my joint account with Ritzen/SN1987a on June 09th 2006. Since we don't use that account anymore (SN is writing Gintama fics now and I prefer having one account instead of two for my fics), I decided to post this fic here.


End file.
